Ho Ho Ho, and Meow

Well, this is more than you want to see of my kitchen and dining room but it DOES show an apple pie, freshly baked, and a lot of Xmas gifts, unopened. But that was three days ago.

Now grandchildren have come and gone after two nights here, and tonight my SF daughter will be here with friends. It is raining...snow is melting away...and now we head toward New Years and 2009.....Resolutions and Inauguration and whatever surprises, probably both good and bad, are still in store for us.

My major resolution is to finish the book manuscript I've been wrestling with for too long. I wonder if a professional wrestler ever thinks: Enough wrestling,I'm just going to break this guy's back and get it done. That's how I'm feeling.

My grandsons gave their mom a kitten---now named Roscoe--for Christmas.

She is a good sport---and likes cats. I am a good sport, but more of a dog person, so I hope any live gifts that ever come my way are in the canine department. My grown kids have all had both cats and dogs (Except for my late son Grey, who was very allergic to cats) so I have had many more grandanimals than grandchildren.

Fellow writer and friend (and neighbor) Kathryn Lasky canme over with her husband, son, daughter-in-law, and darling new baby granddaughter Lulu, age 5 months, on Christmas Day. So I was telling grandson Rhys, just turned 8 years old, what he was like at that age...and mainly the operative adjective was HUGE. Odd, because now he is a normal-sized second-grade boy, but he was a giant baby. Not sure this photo really shows that. But here is Rhys, eight years ago, age 3 months, with his basketball-sized head.